Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice - hands-on

We tear ass through two new levels and four multiplayer modes

The second part was a little tougher, as it involved dodging giant fireballs from Billy's flamethrower, blasting some armor plating off the back of the truck and then leaping aboard and grabbing onto its ladder. The ensuing boss fight was simple dodging and shooting, with our input limited to ducking out of the way of Billy's blasts, and then returning fire once they'd passed by. Once it was over, though, we were introduced to a new batch of heavies: Viper Squad, a rival police unit that relies on bulky black stormtrooper armor and brute force, in sharp contrast to Pursuit Force's brand of lightly armored, high-speed awesome. Sony's fact sheet for the game reveals that their rivalryisn't friendly, however; the Vipers and their "corrupt commander" are one of three new gangs you'll have to take down.

The second part was a little tougher, as it involved dodging giant fireballs from Billy's flamethrower, blasting some armor plating off the back of the truck and then leaping aboard and grabbing onto its ladder. The ensuing boss fight was simple dodging and shooting, with our input limited to ducking out of the way of Billy's blasts, and then returning fire once they'd passed by. Once it was over, though, we were introduced to a new batch of heavies: Viper Squad, a rival police unit that relies on bulky black stormtrooper armor and brute force, in sharp contrast to Pursuit Force's brand of lightly armored, high-speed awesome. Sony's fact sheet for the game reveals that their rivalryisn't friendly, however; the Vipers and their "corrupt commander" are one of three new gangs you'll have to take down.

Their brief-but-dramatically silly "This is our jurisdiction! Drop your weapons!" standoff with Pursuit Force was the only look we had at them, though, because then the demo abruptly threw us into the game's 17th level, "Hell hat no Fury!" Here, we were tasked with smashing some of the paramilitary Warlords gang, who had been led by one of their crazy Russian commanders to blow up a missile-defense base. The level started out with us sitting in the belly of a lazily floating helicopter, slowly circling around the Warlords and their massive tank and trying to blow up as much stuff as possible with the chopper's minigun.

After we'd done enough damage and the tank fled, it was back into the cruiser to chase it down, at which point we had to get close enough for our partner to leap onboard and plant explosives three times. We don't know why she had to keep hopping back into the car over and over instead of just planting them all in one trip, but whatever. Once the explosives had blown the rear armor off the tank, we were free to leap aboard, beginning a multi-phase boss fight where we had to take out gunners as they popped out of hatches; once each one went down, we could pop a grenade down his hatch, prompting the commander to pop up from the tank's turret to trade shots with us. We continued this pattern while scooting around the perimeter of the tank (and dodging its massive turret when it swung toward us), and the war machine blew up real good in no time.

Their brief-but-dramatically silly "This is our jurisdiction! Drop your weapons!" standoff with Pursuit Force was the only look we had at them, though, because then the demo abruptly threw us into the game's 17th level, "Hell hat no Fury!" Here, we were tasked with smashing some of the paramilitary Warlords gang, who had been led by one of their crazy Russian commanders to blow up a missile-defense base. The level started out with us sitting in the belly of a lazily floating helicopter, slowly circling around the Warlords and their massive tank and trying to blow up as much stuff as possible with the chopper's minigun.

After we'd done enough damage and the tank fled, it was back into the cruiser to chase it down, at which point we had to get close enough for our partner to leap onboard and plant explosives three times. We don't know why she had to keep hopping back into the car over and over instead of just planting them all in one trip, but whatever. Once the explosives had blown the rear armor off the tank, we were free to leap aboard, beginning a multi-phase boss fight where we had to take out gunners as they popped out of hatches; onceeach one went down, we could pop a grenade down his hatch,prompting the commander to pop up from the tank's turret to trade shots with us.We continuedthis pattern while scooting around the perimeter of the tank (and dodging its massive turret when it swung toward us), and the war machine blew up real good in no time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.